Fallout
by Swiftfire97
Summary: Eggman actually wins, and manages to take over the world. But the empire only flourished for a month before the world was suddenly blown apart and plunged into a nuclear winter. Many years later, Sonic breaks out of a cryogenic tank. How is he supposed to save the world this time?
1. Prologue

"No, Sonic, today it shall be you that is defeated." Silver exclaimed with finality. He and Sonic were locked in an epic battle of wits...on MW3. A PS3 controller clutched tightly in each hedgehog's hands, all their attention was locked on the broad screen of an LCD flatscreen tv. Sonic lounged on the leather couch while Silver sat on the hardwood floor in front of the couch. It was 8:23 in the morning, and neither of them were getting up until their duel granted a victor. Amy and Blaze were helping Tails make breakfast in the kitchen, and the savory smells only served to strengthen the two. Knuckles was off in the corner of the living room bench-pressing while listening to his IPod. So far he had reached a solid 156. Shadow was off doing errands for GUN and Rouge was up in her room doing God knows what.

"Oh, pssh, you wish, Silver. You have yet to beat me and my trusty Dragunov." Sonic moved his character up a flight of stairs where an open window was shown. Once there, he proceeded to camp and wait for Silver to show up. (They're on the Lockdown map, btw.)

"At least I don't need a Dragunov to snipe. I just add red dot sight to my MK14, and I'm all good to go." The white hedgehog smirked as his character ran down the European city's streets, checking every corner on the way.

"Yeah, 'cause you suck at using sniper rifles!" Sonic chuckled as he ran back to the doorway to set a claymore. Can't be too careful.

"Eh, you're right, but assault rifles take class, my friend." Silver ran up some stairs into the top floor of an art store. After quickly looking around the corner, he trained the red dot sight of his gun across the long hallway. After seeing that there was no one, he dashed up to a stack of military boxes and laid down next to them, watching the doorway he came through.

"Um, you point and shoot, Silver. Can't take too much class." Sonic countered.

"You're just jealous 'cause my gun's gold."

"Right. Totally jealous, even though I could easily add that color to my gun if I wanted to."

"Whatever. Hey, where are you anyway? This is kind of a big map." Silver, still watching the doorway, asked.

"Over here."

Suddenly, a missile crashed into the wall right above Silver, dousing the room in smoke and killing Silver instantly. He was then reset to the other corner of the map, next to a shop with creepy manikins. "Aw, come on! You didn't tell me you had an RPG! Oh well, at least I know where you are now." Silver grinned as he set his character running up the cobblestone streets.

"Oh yeah? Well I have a surprise for you." Sonic shouted in triumph as he called in a predator missile.

"No no no no nooo!" Silver exclaimed as he tried to dash for the nearest building. He was too late, however, as the missile found its mark, and the score screen came up with Sonic as the winner.

"Ahaaah! And Sonic goes undefeated!" The blue hedgehog leapt off the couch and did a victory dance.

"Oh, hush. I'll get you someday yet." Silver smirked as he threw a pillow at Sonic who, seeing the surprise attack, ducked, and then tackled the white hedgehog, putting him in a headlock.

From the kitchen, Amy and Blaze laughed as they watched the two hedgehogs wrestle. Boys will be boys, eh? "Hey, breakfast is ready! Come and get it!" Amy shouted as she set out plates and Blaze got the silverware.

"Yeah, food!" The two boys threw down their controllers and happily ran up to the table. Pancakes drizzled in syrup sat beside a plate heaped with bacon and eggs. Everyone grabbed a plate and started dishing up food, Silver and Sonic having a contest to see who could fit the most pancakes on their plate. Rouge then came down the stairs gracefully and went to Knuckles, who was still on the bench. Taking one of his earbuds out of his ears, she said, "Breakfast is ready, Knuckie," with a voice like silk, then went to the kitchen to grab a yogurt. Knuckles, grunting, set down the weight and grabbed a towel to wipe his forehead. Taking out his earbuds and setting his IPod down on the bench, he draped the towel around his shoulders and went to where everyone was eating and talking animatedly. Grabbing a plate and stacking it sky high with food, he went to sit next to Rouge. The chair at the head of the table was empty, of course, as it was Shadow's spot.

"So, how did the match go? Sonic won, didn't he?" Knuckles said to Silver, who nodded and elbowed Sonic in the ribs. "Hehe, if you want some advice, try not to get caught out in the open. That's his hunting grounds." Knuckles said with a laugh.

"I was trying, trust me. He just doesn't know the meaning of the word camping." Silver smirked at Sonic.

Sonic lightly punched Silver on the shoulder, exclaiming, "Hey, its not my fault you're so damn impatient. The moment you come out of your hiding spot, I already know where you are."

"Oh, you're such a maniacal genius.."

"Why thank you, I do try."

"Whatever. So how far did you go this time, Knuckles?" Silver asked, knowing full well that by asking that, he and Sonic were in for a long story full of bragging and remarks like, "I swear my biceps got bigger, wanna feel them?"

Knuckles, seizing the moment for what it was worth, immediately went into his story. "Well, from the moment I woke up this morning I just had this feeling that I would-"

Before he had time to finish that sentence, there was a deafening crash as a black blur crashed through the sliding glass doors and was thrown past the dining room by the momentum. A loud thud outside echoed the crash, which woke everyone from their initial shock enough to either scramble outside or scramble to the black hedgehog on the living room floor. (Hehe, get it? Scramble? Cuz its breakfast, and...yeah, I had to point that out. Sorry. Carry on.) Tails, Rouge, and Blaze dashed to the living room to see if Shadow was alright, and everyone else, after a glance to the other room, ran outside to see what all the commotion was. Upon reaching the backyard, heart beating like a jackhammer from the loud noises, Silver was astonished to see...

"Ohh, it's just Eggman. Hey bro, wassup?" Sonic echoed everyone's relief. "Did you have to fling Shadow through our sliding doors though? Amy just ordered those, and they're better than the old french doors that kept squeaking every time we-"

"Just shut up, blue rat; your famous speed also affected your speech patterns. Aaaaanyway, I did come here with some special news, and I was just sure that you would want to hear it..." Dr. Robotnik, sitting comfortably in his Egg Mobile, trailed off as he peered through the broken mess of glass with a smile. "You do know that I always have to make a dramatic entrance, of course. And Shadow just happened to be walking back home as I was on my way. I planned on throwing a tree, but a hedgehog is seventy four percent more convenient."

Shadow, with his wounds already healing up, limped outside as Rouge temporarily supported his weight. Tails and Blaze followed after, Tails going to stand by Sonic, and Blaze going to stand by Silver, cleaning the blood off her gloves from tending to Shadow. The black hedgehog, feeling he could walk by himself again, stubbornly shrugged Rouge off and walked to the front with a slight limp. "Well, you have our attention now. Give me one reason why I shouldn't eradicate you on the spot." Shadow growled, crossing his arms.

"Oh you're just going to love this; I came up with a new plan of destruction!" Eggman pressed a button for confetti and threw his hands in the air.

"Great. Is it going to be like the last few failures you've had recently?" Amy remarked, setting her hammer on her other shoulder.

"Quiet, you! I've ironed out the kinks on this one. And do you want to know the best part? I'm not telling you what it is. You're going to find out in due time." With that last remark, he flew off into the distance with a sinister laugh.

"My story was interrupted for that?" Knuckles watched as the doctor grew smaller and smaller in the sky. The group walked back into the dining room. Tails started inspecting the broken glass doors and assessing for damage while everyone else finished their breakfast and went to clean up the broken glass and the blood.

"If anyone thinks that Eggman's new plan is balogna, say aye." Sonic remarked as he helped to pick up glass. Many aye's were voiced all at once.

"I don't know guys, maybe he's really up to something. I just think we shouldn't underestimate him." Silver stated.

Sonic chuckled and walked over to Silver, putting a hand on his shoulder. "Silver, Silver...you really think after all these years, I'm going to consider that fat lard a threat?"


	2. Awakening

Quiet. The dark, singular room of 10" x 12" was quite full of it. The pervading darkness was broken only by the soft, blue glow of the machine built into the middle of the room. It was also very cold, though that may have been due to the giant cryogenic tank in the middle of the room. Ice encased the tank in its cold embrace. It looked as if the room had been built for this specific reason; to shelter the tank from harm. If you must know, it looks this way because the room looked to have been built with very dense metals, and a large iron door appeared to be locked very tightly from the inside. The room had probably also been like this for some time, because dust and a little bit of rust covered most of the surfaces and some of the machine. The tiny bones of a rat were gathered together in a corner of the room, also helping to prove the longevity of the room. The quiet ticking of the cryo meter next to the machine seemed to be the only thing alive in the room, besides the buzzing of the working machinery.

But, of course, the machinery couldn't be the only thing alive in the darkness. The faint outline of an anthropomorphic figure could be seen floating in the tank. Another meter in front of the tank read out the creature's vitals, which happened to be stable for the time being. Bold, glowing symbols on the chart read out, 'Sonic the Hedgehog' - Keep Caution! Class 5 Priority! Obviously this served to prove that it would be dangerous if this creature was woken up.

Suddenly, the numbers of the vital readings started shifting faster than normal, and the cryo meter's ticking started to reach a new pitch as the ice on the tank started to slowly melt away. Sonic's hands started clenching and unclenching as the bright blue fluid in the tank gradually drained out. An alarm went off, a red light circling around the room as the hedgehog woke up.

He looked around frantically, and realizing that he was in fluid, immediately thought that he was drowning. His mouth opened in a silent scream, not realizing that he could still breathe, and his movements caused tubes planted in his body to fall out, bubbles of oxygen rushing out. Seeing that he really was drowning now, he tried holding his breath for as long as he could. Luckily for him, the fluid drained down past his nose and mouth, and he took a large gulp of the limited oxygen in the tank's space. The absence of the fluid caused considerable amount of pressure to build up, making Sonic's ears pop painfully. The pressure quickly caused the thick glass of the tank to shatter, and the hedgehog and the fluid that was still up to his torso rushed out onto the floor in a blue mess.

The oxygen flew over Sonic like an icy wave as he realized that his body was completely numb, and the fluid that had encased him was, in fact, very cold. His mind clicked as he remembered what a cryogenic tank was. He shivered violently, his body racked with spasms as it tried to heat itself up, although rather clumsily seeing as it hadn't had to function for quite some time. Sonic coughed up the icy, tasteless liquid as oxygen rushed to fill his lungs. He lay like that in a fetal position for a good ten minutes as his body hurried to return to its normal functions.

Eventually his breath slowed and all that was left was a chill from the fluid he was still laying in. Seeing this, Sonic slowly rolled over onto his stomach and tried using his arms to get to his knees. He failed, obviously, as his arms merely shook uncontrollably from muscular atrophy and he collapsed back on the floor. He tried this again a few more times before he was able to lift himself to his knees, albeit rather clumsily. Leaning on one hand, he put his other hand against the wall nearest him. He brought up one of his legs until his foot was on the ground, putting him in a kneeling position. Leaning heavily on the wall, he gradually brought himself into a shaky standing position, letting his legs warm up to extra work of standing.

Once he felt he could stand without falling over, he turned to lean his back on the wall, trying to stretch his muscles as his eyes took in his surroundings. He studied the machine that he had fallen out of, too confused and disoriented to understand anything at the moment. His brain was still warming up as well, remembering all its functions as his intelligence slowly came back to him. The last thing he remembered before this was...a mustached face with small, beady eyes...And he remembered devastating destruction..missiles raining from the sky...blood mixing with ash on the pavement...His memories came back to him in short blasts of thought. He shook his head as he decided to deal with it all later. For now, his priority was to figure out how to get out of the room.

As his eyes became accustomed to the darkness, he could see a large iron door with many locks across the room. He almost walked over to it, but then realized that he wasn't wearing his trademark gloves and shoes. Wouldn't want to walk over the broken glass in his bare feet. So he walked around the shards of glass, looking about the room for his articles of clothing. Seeing an iron cabinet on the wall next to him, he ambled over to it. Grabbing the handle, he pulled the door open and looked inside, elated to find his shoes, socks, and gloves in a pile on one of the shelves. There were also a few other pieces of clothing and some tools. Sonic pulled on his gloves and strapped on his shoes with a little bit of effort and hopping. Having his trademarks back on made him feel a bit more comfortable and at ease.

After that, he studied what else was left on the shelves. There was a gray, wooly scarf, ski goggles, a dark gray jacket with a hood, gray pants, reinforced pads serving as small armor, underclothes, and a messenger bag. Laying next to the bag was a multi-purpose tool, a switchblade, a flashlight, and a broad machete. There was also an empty utility belt sitting next to the bag. Sifting through the bag, Sonic could see all kinds of other small tools, a gas mask, two bottles of water, some packets of food, a grappling hook, rope, and a compass. _Now that is a lot of survival gear. Why would anyone have a use for all of this? And why is all of this left in here? Certainly not just for me. _Sonic put on the clothes, scarf, goggles, and gear, attempting to get used to the bulkiness of wearing clothes, which he didn't do very often. _This is gonna take some getting used to. And why the hell is there a gas mask in here? _Sonic put his flashlight, gas mask, machete, switchblade and a couple other tools into the belt. Everything else was stuffed into the messenger bag, and he threw it over his shoulder so it rested on the opposite hip. Seeing as he was ready for anything now, he walked over to the door and pulled the iron latch. It took a little effort though because the door was heavy, but once it was fully open, Sonic took the time to really appreciate his goggles and extra clothes.

Blinding light poured into the room, illuminating everything in sight, and an icy cold wind rushed past him, making him shiver. Once his eyes got used to the brightness, he was surprised to see a blanket of snow covering the world, and snowflakes were gently falling from the sky. _Its...winter? I thought it was summer..._Seeing the outside world for once brought on a whole slew of memories, and he had to lean on the doorway so as not to be overwhelmed.

He remembered the day Eggman had come to them with the announcement of a new plan after having thrown through the sliding glass doors...then blackness. Sonic growled in frustration, wanting to remember more. All he could remember of the events leading after was total destruction, ashes, blood, and a feeling of dread. _Did...did Eggman actually come up with a successful plan? Is this destruction a result of that? I really hope not. God, I hope the gang's okay_. _They could be anywhere. Well, no use worrying now, I need to see where I'm at. They're strong, they'll be okay. _Shaking off the memories, Sonic trudged outside, hearing the crunch of ice and snow with every step. His surroundings weren't really much to look at. There was a wide expanse of nothing, with decrepit cars rusted down to their insides, some skeletons buried in the snow; whether they were human or animal Sonic couldn't tell. The sky was very overcast and gray, and there was no life to be seen. Sonic felt like the only living, breathing thing out there. If he looked to the east, he could see the small outline of a city, though the city looked to be destroyed, and some of the buildings were leveled, it seemed. To the west, a mountain range ran across for miles, looking a little worse for wear. _Oh my God...what the hell happened to Mobius? Did Eggman cause all of this? He wouldn't...he would never go that far. Goddamn it, I need answers. _Trying to keep his emotions in check from all the destruction and death, Sonic focused his thoughts on the city in the distance. _Maybe I'll find some locals who can give me information on what happened here. I have a feeling that cryogenic tank's kept me out for a while..._

With an objective in mind, Sonic kicked his speed into gear and ran towards the outline of the city, the empty wasteland a blur of white and grey.


	3. Reunion

Sonic kept his hood up so as not to look too conspicuous. His journey to the city had only taken a good five minutes, thanks to his speed. He had slowed down on the outskirts of the city, however, so as not to alert much people to his presence in the city. Sonic knew to trust his gut, and his gut was giving off a not so pleasant feeling about the people he had seen so far. They weren't very friendly, though that might just be because of the state of the world. Supplies were probably few, and trust was probably nonexistent. As he walked down the dilapidated sidewalk with his hands in his pockets, he studied the gangs of people through the corner of his eye. The hedgehog kept his machete in plain sight to warn people, but he most likely wouldn't use it if he didn't have to. Sonic was more of a person to bring his brain into a conflict; plus he had a code, which included not to kill.

The sound of shouting and grunts of pain suddenly made Sonic turn around abruptly. A few yards away, a fight had broken out; an equipment trader, a mole, swapping blows and curses with one of the people on the street, a red fox with a missing eye. Sonic looked around to see if anyone was going to intervene, but no one even glanced, seemingly oblivious to it. Immediately, the hedgehog raced back down the street towards them.

The two were slugging it out, the mole not so lucky, as he was the lesser experienced fighter. He tried as best he could to keep his forearms in front of his face as the fox delivered swift jabs and punches. Smirking, he made a hook to the mole's temple, and while he was dazed, made an uppercut into his stomach. The mole doubled over in pain and nausea as he tried gasping feebly for air. Before the fox could kick him to the ground, however, Sonic stopped to a standstill in front of the trader, crossing his arms and tapping his foot.

The fox, with a disgusted look on his face, yelled, "What are you doin'? Tryin' to be the hero, or something? Get the fuck outta the way!"

Sonic returned the look, crossing his arms and tapping his foot.

"Leave him alone, he's done nothing to you." Sonic glanced down to the mole, seeing him in pain. _Sorry, but I gotta take care of this idiot real quick. _Seeing this rare act of defiance, the passerby started to take notice of the fox and hedgehog staring daggers at each other, and the mole coughing up blood on the ground.

Seeing this, the fox gained some courage and grinned slyly, saying, "Hedgehog, you're either brave or stupid. But you've got guts, I'll give you that." And with that, he lunged with a hook to the jaw...and missed. Sonic had dodged the punch in a whirlwind of speed and ended up behind him, poking him in the shoulder. The fox, surprised, growled and lunged again. Thus, Sonic dodged again. Sighing, the hedgehog said, "You know, this is starting to get real repetitive." Enraged now, the fox whirled around and, shouting, rushed the hedgehog for a tackle. Sonic easily sidestepped this, and when the fox crumpled into a heap on the ground, he rushed to the mole's side to help him up.

People all around stood and gawked at the scene. A stranger had suddenly appeared in the city and managed to embarrass the local bully, without laying a finger on him. But more than that, they were amazed at the stranger's speed, the same speed that used to belong to the hero of old. Was he really him, maybe? Or just a descendant, perhaps? No, of course not. The fox, who was now back on his feet, was starting to think this as well, and now had a little apprehension. He was more embarrassed than anything, however, and that led to, of course, more anger.

With a shout, he rushed to the hedgehog, determined to bring him pain. Seeing as Sonic was preoccupied with helping the trader up, he was caught unawares when the fox slugged him in the head. Sonic fell to the ground with a cry of pain as the fox straddled him to the pavement, his right hand tightened around the hedgehog's neck, choking him while simultaneously pinning him. Sonic coughed and gasped, his hands clawing at the fox's arm. "Not so cocky now, are you?" Chuckling evilly, the fox used his other hand to pull off the hedgehog's hood. He and the other people around suddenly gasped. It couldn't be him, could it? Seeing as he was distracted, Sonic used this moment to punch the fox's outer elbow so that his hand came off his neck, then rolled over and kicked him off. He got to his feet, coughing and trying to breathe in as much oxygen as he possibly could. Then he noticed that everyone in the street was staring at him.

The fox had gotten to his feet and was now staring at him as well. "You...you're him. You're the guy."

* * *

Downing his last shot and setting the empty glass on the wooden bar, the hedgehog, said, "Another." Hearing his request, the bartender walked over to where he was sitting. "Sir, this is your fourth. I suggest you take it easy a little bit." Nonetheless, he poured the liquid into the empty glass and went to answer more requests.

The hedgehog wore a tattered black hoodie and reinforced cargo pants. Black goggles hung around his neck and a beige rucksack laid comfortably on his back. A pair of .45 pistols hung off his belt and a 20 gauge shotgun was slung around his back, laying next to the the glass in his hand, he was about to down it as well when a girl rushed into the bar. All eyes were on her as she shouted, "It's him! He's out in the street beating the crap out of Benny!"

Hearing this, people rushed past her and out the door. _Oh my God. There is no way he is alive. _The hedgehog couldn't believe his ears. He ran past the people easily until he reached the crowd in the middle of the street. He eventually pushed past the people into the middle, and was shocked as the girl's statement was confirmed, although exaggerated.

In the middle of the circle, Sonic was standing defensively, his fist clenched and another hand rubbing his throat. The hedgehog couldn't believe his eyes. Was he really here, or just another figment of his over reactive imagination? If it was him, then he needed to get him out of here. He ran into the middle of the circle and grabbed Sonic's wrist, with an indignant _'What the hell?!_ from the blue hedgehog. He dashed down the street and through a couple alleys, trying to get away from prying eyes. Only when they were in the deserted wreckage of a house at the edge of the city did the hedgehog finally let go of Sonic. Rubbing his wrist, Sonic got over his anger of being dragged and realized that this guy had saved him from all that unwanted attention.

"Thanks. But why was everyone staring at me like that and calling me 'the guy'? I really don't know what's going on..." Sonic trailed off as the figure pulled off his hood.

"Oh my God, Shadow! Is that really you?" Sonic exclaimed with surprise and happiness as he rushed in to hug the black hedgehog. Shadow actually reciprocated, much to Sonic's surprise, and put his arms around the blue hedgehog. After a couple seconds, Shadow had apparently reached his capacity for hugging and shrugged Sonic off. The blue hedgehog chuckled when he saw this. "Still the same old Shadow, huh?"

"Oh shut up. Do you even know how long it's been? And where have you been all this time?" Shadow added, his voice slightly trembling as his face became serious. "Wait, you're probably more confused than I am at the moment. I'll answer your questions first." He motioned for Sonic to sit next to him as he sat with his back against the broken wall.

"You might want to get comfortable; this is going to be a long story."


	4. Explanations

"No, you're not in a different dimension, nor a separate universe. This is still Mobius, just about a century into the future. Don't ask me how it turned out like this, because I'm not so sure myself. Of course it was an apocalypse of a massive scale, but no one knows exactly what happened. I guess we're just lucky to have survivors." Shadow sighed as he put his arms behind him, interlocking his hands on the nape of his neck. "Okay, questions. Go ahead and throw them out."

"Umm, well my first question is...Eggman. Before I woke up," Sonic saw Shadow's look of confusion, knowing he probably had questions as well. "I'll explain later. Anyway, before I woke up out of that tank, I remember Eggman coming to us one day and announcing a new plan; one that he said was different. As for the week after that, though, everything is vague and blurry. I mostly just remember destruction and screams, but definitely not stuff of this caliber."

The black hedgehog looked up at the gray sky, thinking for a moment. "Hmm...I..kind of remember that week. Not very well though. It's almost as if...it's blocked. Or at least that's what it feels like. As you very well know, I have a lot of practice trying to regain memories, so this is new for me."

"Well, damn. There go my hopes for an explanation." Sonic blew raspberries in minor frustration. "Okay, next question. Where is everyone? And why did I wake up in a cryogenic tank?"

"Oh, but this is where you cross over into my questions. But let me explain first. I, too, woke from a cryogenic tank, but I think I woke at least a few years before you did. I'm not sure though, seeing as I can't exactly determine time as well as I could before all this."

Sonic glanced at Shadow in surprise. _A few years? Damn, now I see why he was so happy to see me._ The black hedgehog caught Sonic's look and, almost as if he had read his mind, nodded in pensiveness.

"But anyway, through those years, the only thing I was set on doing was finding you guys. That, and figuring out what happened to make the world like this. I traveled to many cities asking around, hoping for some scrap of news. But it seems that everyone else was doing the same. It looks like no one really remembers what happened a century ago, and I only know it was a century ago from a document I happened upon one day. Unfortunately, it didn't go into detail. But yeah, that's been my mission recently, just finding documents or any kind of knowledge wherever I could."

"The whole time though, I was always afraid that...somehow you guys had died. Because whenever I talked to locals about us, they would either not know what I was talking about, say that we were all dead, or speak of us as if we were some kind of legend. That's why they treated you like that in the square, and why I always keep my hood up now. Though I guess that's to be expected. We haven't really been around for at least a good century. Or at least that's what I'm assuming, since you're the only one I've found so far."

"Makes sense, I guess." Sonic laid his hand on Shadow's shoulder, giving him a reassuring squeeze. "Don't worry, Shads, we'll find them. Remember, you have me now." Hearing that, the black hedgehog smiled slightly. "Ok, now onto my story." Sonic launched into his story of the past events leading up until Shadow had grabbed him in the street.

"So you're telling me that you broke out also? Hmm. There seems to be a pattern here."

"What, you broke out too?"

"Yes, and I think I now know why we did. I have a theory that somehow the machinery in the tanks malfunctioned, maybe that's why we broke out instead of just being released. And it also explains why I broke out before you. It was just chance really."

"So...do you think the others might also be in tanks as well?"

"It depends. They might not have been placed in a cryogenic state like we were, but I'm hoping they were."

Sonic frowned, thinking of all the possibilities. _God, they might not have even...they might not even be alive now. _He saw a look from Shadow, saying that he understood the pain of uncertainty. The blue hedgehog swallowed down a lump in his throat. No use getting worked up if we're not even sure yet. _Just ask another question. _"Hm. Well, if we broke out early, then how long do you think those machines were built for?"

"Who knows. But we've got to collect some evidence to back up my theory. Let's go back to your location and look around, see if we can find anything pertaining to the situation."

"Okay, but I've still got one more question." Sonic stated as he and Shadow got to their feet, Sonic picking loose rubble out of his fur. The black hedgehog nodded in his direction, indicating he was ready to answer.

"Why do you think we were in tanks in the first place?"

Shadow paused, thinking. "Well, obviously someone wanted us to last for a very long time. I'm just not sure how long, or who." He sighed. "Let's not worry about it now when we have no information. Focus on the task at hand."

"Yeah, I guess you're right. Okay, let's go, I'll lead the way. I just hope I can remember where it is."

Deciding not to go through the city again, the pair ran a half circle around the outskirts of the city until they reached a road that Sonic faintly recognized. Snow dusted the sand so that the road underneath was barely recognizable. Sonic looked in the direction the road led, remembering the faint outline of mountains in the far distance.

"Yep, that's where we're going. The mountains. Looks really snowy from here. Wish I had a coat with me, I'm getting shivers just looking at them." Looking in the distance, he also noticed that the sun was sitting low in the sky.

"Uhh, Shadow, it's going to get dark soon."

"So?"

"We don't have anywhere to stay..."

"Oh, I forgot, you just got here. Yeah, in the wasteland, we make camps."

"But..." Sonic gestured to the city, mouthing the word 'civilization'.

"Hmph, you don't want to take your chances with other people, trust me. In a world like this, you take care of yourself." Shadow remarked with a blank expression as he started walking off the gravel and into the snow, then stopped and looked back at Sonic. "Come on, we can't linger here. There's too much to be done."

Taking one last look at the sky and fixing his belt, Sonic ran up to Shadow, walking backwards so he could face him. "Sooo...wanna race?" He asked with an innocent little grin.

Shadow stared at Sonic as if he had just asked him to eat a moose. Then suddenly he broke out into a smile. "Oh what the hell. Why not." He said gallantly as he picked up his speed, skating past Sonic and trailing melted snow in his wake.

Sonic spread his arms and adopted a face of mock surprise. "This is what I get as a homecoming present?" The hedgehog shouted into the air as he picked up his feet and ran. He caught up to Shadow in 3 seconds flat, sticking out his tongue at the other, who smirked and picked up his speed. Tongue lolling down his chin, he pouted momentarily then picked up his speed until he caught up with Shadow again. "You gonna actually try? You're making me yawn."

"Sonic, I've had all the time in the world to run around. You want speed? You got it." With his shoes actually trailing fire, Shadow zipped through the snow, leaving Sonic drenched in the freezing water.

"Oh, now that's just rude." He shook himself off as best he could, not expecting the onslaught. "That's..actually much faster than usual. Wow. Okay. Still can't touch this though." Giving a small battle cry, he yanked out his inner speed demon and darted down the road after Shadow.

Sonic was nearly caught up with him, just a few yards behind. In a couple seconds he was right behind him. He looked up from watching his feet and was shocked to see the mountains so close. They were going faster than he originally thought. "Hey Shads, we're almost there! Let's see who's the better man!"

They were nose to nose, glancing at each other every few seconds. The mountains loomed ever closer, and soon they were close to a mock finish line; a space between two clusters of rocks. They thundered through the space in a cloud of snow, dust, and God knows what else. They eventually came to a stop, Shadow cleanly making a 180 and digging his skates into the snow. Sonic toppled head over heels, his body not used to going at that speed.

"Heh, guess there's a first for everything." Shadow smirked as he saw Sonic attempt to pull his head out of the snow. "I'm sure I won."

"It's not my fault I've been sleeping for the past 100 years. Even I don't run in my sleep." He said smartly after he finally pulled his head out. "And no, I'm pretty sure I won."

"Uhh, Sonic."

"You may have gotten more practice than me, but I'm still the fastest damn thing on earth." He said, ignoring Shadow and going off on a tangent while wiping the snow out of his face.

"Sonic, listen to me."

"Besides, you never really had a chance anyway, I always-"

"SONIC. SHUT UP. LOOK."

"Hm?" Sonic turned his head and looked in the direction of Shadow's pointy finger.

His face froze into a face of shock. "What..." He suddenly couldn't find his voice.

In front of the metal building that housed Sonic's broken tank, stood an ominous, black mass with no discernible features. Its fingers curved into talons that reached to the ground, and its...feet, ended in two sharp points. The only thing that stood out on the creature were its neon purple eyes. Wisps of shadow curled off of it and settled on the ground, vanishing.

"You can hold hands if you want, for it will be the last thing you ever feel, hedgehogs."

So the creature had a sense of humor. How delightful.


	5. Confrontation

The obsidian creature started to lunge at Sonic; amethyst eyes glowing, razor-sharp talons aiming for his eyes. Sonic attempted to dodge the creature's attack, but found that he was frozen, transfixed by the creature's eyes. It was as if the hedgehog had been stunned with its gaze. It was all he could do to try to escape it, grunting with the physical and mental effort.

In that moment the world decelerated to a slow crawl, the events happening in front of him in slow motion. When the being was but ten feet away from slashing his eyes out, Shadow jumped in front of Sonic, raising his green emerald in the air yelling, "Chaos control!". In a bright flash of viridian light, both the creature and Shadow vanished.

Knocked out of his stupor, Sonic collapsed on the ground with a huff. "Well that was anticlimactic. Of course Shadow has to go and steal my thunder." He pouted, overlooking the fact that Shadow had just saved his ass.

Out of nowhere, Shadow swiftly fell to the ground a few feet away from Sonic, making the azure hedgehog jump with a yelp. As Shadow's back hit the ground with a sickening crunch, the breath flew out of his lungs in a strangled gasp, his eyes open wide in pain. He had bloody scratches reaching from his stomach to his side, and one arm looked fractured.

"Shadow!" Sonic gaped at the hedgehog's wounds, about to run over to him.

Before he could, however, there was a deafening screech overhead as a writhing, black cloud streaked towards Sonic at a frightening speed. The hedgehog made a conscious effort to avoid looking at the creature as he dashed away, wheeling around and staring as the cloud rushed to meet the ground, dissipating to take the form of the creature again. "Give up now, before you meet his fate."

Sonic glanced at Shadow, knowing he'd most likely be okay. _He's been through much worse than this, and he can heal quickly. _As if to accentuate his thought, Shadow started to get up, pressing his arm bones back together with a crack so that they could mend. Already, Sonic could see that the scratches were now just pale pink marks, the blood already dried to his fur. _I'm mostly worried about me though. I wouldn't fare well with a broken leg or a lacerated stomach. _

In answer to Sonic's worried thoughts, the being morphed back into a cloud and rushed towards the blue hedgehog, sweeping him off his feet and carrying him up to the sky. He barely heard Shadow's shout as the wind rushed past his ears, making his eyes water. He couldn't see either as the black cloud was obscuring his vision, making it hard to see how high up he was. It felt pretty high though; the air was thinning.

Suddenly, with a cry from Shadow, the creature stopped with a shriek and dropped Sonic. Once he was out of the being's grasp, the blue hedgehog could see Shadow was fighting it again, throwing chaos spears and warping to avoid the creature's blows. Sonic felt left out, so he dropped into a ball and spindashed towards the cloud, which had now morphed into a giant black phoenix.

He hit the creature square in the stomach, or should have, if he didn't pass straight through it like smoke. Confused, Sonic looked back and saw that he had indeed passed right through it. _Well crap, there goes my usefulness right out the window._ Then he got a better look at the creature as it was fighting Shadow. _It...almost looks like its eyes are the only solid thing on it. They're almost like gems...yup, I have an idea._

And with that, Sonic spindashed back up to the creature and instead aimed for its head. Just like he predicted, grabbing the creature was like grabbing smoke, so instead Sonic tried latching onto its eyes. The being shrieked as Sonic's hands curled around them tightly, and he hung on for dear life as it thrashed around in the air, trying to fling him off. Its form switching from solid to smoke every few seconds, as if it was having a hard time focusing. When Sonic saw this he looked towards Shadow, about to tell him of his discovery, but the black hedgehog was already one step ahead of him.

He launched chaos spears at the creature, trying to hit its vitals as it thrashed in the air. With some effort and clenched teeth, Sonic hung from one of its eyes, then made a powerful kick to the other eye. As it popped off, the creature screamed, then morphed into a dragon which made Sonic lose his grip. As he fell off, the creature tried to grab Sonic again, but missed, instead having three of its sharp talons tear through the muscle in Sonic's right leg, making him scream in agony.

Steeling himself to ignore the pain as best he could, he went into a spindash and went rushing back towards the creature, but this time with a different plan in mind. When he reached the creature, he immediately rushed in circle around it, creating an angry blue tornado. Shadow joined him, lending his strength and wind to create a giant, black and blue tornado that confused and tore at the creature.

Its black smoke joined into the harsh winds, ripping away at the shadowy being until it had disappeared into the tornado, lending it dark, sinister winds.

All at once, Sonic and Shadow let go of the tornado. Sonic, weak and disoriented, lost his focus and starting to fall. Shadow, forgetting that the blue hedgehog couldn't suspend himself in the air like he could, flew down towards Sonic. He grabbed him before they could hit the ground and chaos controlled, instead landing in a heap on the freezing snow.

The tornado they had created eventually dissipated and evaporated, bringing the creature along with it. Now there was no evidence that it had ever been there, except for a few gaping gashes on Sonic's leg. Remembering the injury, Sonic bolted upright to look at it. Immediately he was sickened by the sight of all the blood. Then he realized that it didn't hurt. "Hey Shadow, how come it doesn't hurt? It's pretty deep..."

"Then that's a bad sign. That means you have nerves that were damaged, which is keeping you from feeling the pain." Taking an army green tin box out of his bag, Shadow opened it and sifted through the contents, pulling out peroxide, a cloth, a roll of gauze, a bundle of stitches, and a thin sewing needle. First, Shadow scooped some relatively clean snow and laid it on the wound, then used the cloth to clean off the excess blood and attempt to staunch the flow with pressure. He then poured peroxide over the gashes to disinfect it, with a shout of 'Hey, that stings!' from Sonic.

Once the wound had stopped foaming from the peroxide, Shadow layered more snow on the wound, so that it eventually became numb. After that, he picked up the needle and stitching thread, which immediately freaked the blue hedgehog out. "Oh, come on you wimp, I need to stitch it up. You probably won't feel it anyway, the damaged nerves have made it relatively numb, even without all the snow." Sonic just stared at the needle. "Okay, you don't have to watch it, just go think about something else." When Sonic kept staring, Shadow eventually pushed the hedgehog's head down to the ground.

Seeing that Sonic's eyes were squeezed shut, he told him to relax, then set to work on the gashes. "So, any thoughts on that thing?" He asked, deciding that a conversation would put the hedgehog's mind off the stitching.

"Well, it certainly didn't die, that's for sure. It'll be back, which sucks, because it's hard to fight that thing. I freaking spindashed right through it." Sonic said in frustration.

"Yeah, I noticed that my chaos spears weren't really doing much damage other than pissing it off. That tornado was a pretty good idea though."

"Thanks, I haven't actually done that in a while." Then Sonic remembered Shadow being thrown from the sky. "Oh hey, how's your arm?"

"Oh, it still hurts like hell, but its healing at least."

"That's good. Kind of. So, where do you think that thing came from anyway? I forgot to ask him...it...whatever."

"I'm not sure, but it isn't good in any case. This means we have an enemy, even all the way out here."

"Well that's great. And he looked really intent on breaking my leg too."

"Yeah, it's good that he only scratched you. It would be pretty damn bad if this was broken." With that, he finished up the last stitch while Sonic chuckled.

"Just a scratch, pffffbbt."

Shadow wrapped the injury in many layers of gauze, tearing off the rest of the fabric and rolling it up. "Torture's over, now go play while I clean up." He said as he starting putting his things away and washing the cloth in the snow.

Sonic got up slowly, gingerly putting pressure on his leg, then regretting the decision as pain shot up his leg. "Yeah, I think the pain's back."

"That's good" was all Shadow said.

Muttering obscenities and curses, Sonic was eventually able to limp on the leg, taking care not to put too much weight on it. He went to go find his bag that he had dropped when the creature showed, but instead a shiny glint in the corner of his eye made him look to the ground. Half buried in the snow was some purple...thing.

As Sonic bent to pick it up, he was astonished to find that the purple thing was the creature's right eye, the one he had torn out. _Well, isn't that a nice souvenir._ "Hey, Shadow! I found his eye!"


	6. Opposition

"Sonic! Don't touch that!" Shadow bolted towards Sonic and grabbed the hedgehog's arm before he could grab the object.

"And why not?" Sonic asked in confusion as he looked at Shadow, now glancing at the object as if it was the plague.

"You don't know what it could do to you if it came into contact with you. Better just to leave it there, in my opinion." He said, letting go of Sonic's arm as the blue hedgehog massaged the spot where Shadow had held his arm in a death grip.

Shadow gave Sonic a glare until he said, "Okay, okay, I'll leave it alone, geez." Only after hearing this did Shadow walked back to their camp.

After seeing that he was gone, Sonic quickly picked up the eye and stuffed it into one of his pants pockets. He walked back to camp and looked around for his messenger bag, hoping it hadn't gotten damaged in the fight. Luckily, Shadow had already found it for him, and upon picking it up to check the contents, swiftly grabbed the eye out of his pocket and dropped it in one of the more obscure pockets of the bag.

"So, where to now?" Sonic asked, attempting to strike up a conversation to break the silence.

"I thought that we came here to check out the tank..." Shadow said, looking at Sonic strangely. "Did you change your mind?"

"No I...I was just wondering if you changed _your_ mind."

Shadow just rolled his eyes and sighed. "You're scared, aren't you?"

"Scared? Of what?"

After an intense look from the black hedgehog, Sonic finally relented. "Yeah...yeah, I guess I am a little bit. But it just..brings back bad memories, you know?"

Shadow looked at Sonic with a hint of sympathy, then walked over to him to put a hand on his shoulder. "Come on, we'll just walk in, check it out, then leave, alright?"

"Yeah, I guess so."

Fixing his scarf and repositioning his bag across his shoulders, Sonic limped after Shadow and walked towards the building, snow crunching underfoot. Once they reached the door, which was slightly ajar, Sonic could tell something was wrong. Ice crept outwards, cracked where deep gouge marks were engraved in the door, and black powder mingled with the rust on the lower part of the door.

"Yeah, I think I remember closing this on my way out." Sonic said, inspecting the marks on the door.

"Obviously took a lot of manpower to open the door then." Shadow kneeled, sweeping a finger across the powder and rubbing it between his forefinger and thumb. "See this powder? Smells like sulfur." Standing up and dusting off his hands, Shadow leaned into the door and pushed it, the iron of the door gliding across the ice now covering the floor of the small building. A blast of frigid air flew out, whipping past the hedgehogs' faces and making Sonic's eyes sting.

Rubbing his eyes, the blue hedgehog walked gingerly past Shadow and into the room, looking around for any other signs of tampering, of which there weren't any surprisingly. "Hey Shadow, why would they go to the trouble of getting the door open if they weren't going to do anything?" He said, watching as Shadow studied the room.

The broken cryogenic tank still stood in the middle of the room, broken shards of glass scattered around the room. All the liquid from the tank had drained out onto the floor,

Suddenly, a chilling, prickling feeling rushed up Sonic's spine, making his eyes open wide and his fur stand on end.

"Uh, something tells me they're still here."

Seeming to materialize out of the shadows, four figures clad in black walked slowly towards them, two of them closing in behind them to block their escape. Their black hoods covered their heads while their goggles and scarves concealed their faces. They carried sturdy shotguns or assault rifles slung over their backs and held up pistols at shoulder level, aimed towards Sonic and Shadow.

"Put your hands up where we can see them!" One of the taller figures commanded in a stern voice. It almost sounded familiar, but it was as if something was altering his voice just enough for it to be unrecognizable. "And don't even think about using your famous speed, hedgehogs." Upon hearing this, Sonic just stared at him.

"How did you know..." He murmured as he put his hands behind his head.

Shadow, instead of raising his arms, pointed a finger accusingly. "Who are you? Show your faces you cowards!" He challenged, staring daggers at the main speaker of the group.

"Stand down, or you _will_ regret it." The leader threatened, his voice like poison.

Sonic looked back at Shadow, his eyes wide, "Shadow, _they have guns._" He said through clenched teeth.

After a few tense seconds, Shadow eventually put his arms up. "If the hedgehog wasn't here, you would be a bloody mess." He growled.

The leader ignored this, instead saying, "Search them and take their belongings." The other three figures complied, rushing towards Sonic and Shadow with a yelp of dismay from the blue hedgehog.

"Hey, be careful with that!" Sonic shouted as they snatched his messenger bag off of his shoulder, digging their hands into the bag to search the contents. They searched his pockets, and patted him down thoroughly, much to Sonic's annoyance. Shadow stood like a sentinel, silent and angry, as they searched him as well.

Once they were done and had taken their bags and all of Shadow's weapons, the leader walked up to stare at Sonic. Or what Sonic assumed was staring, since he couldn't exactly see his face. "Well, we can't exactly have you two memorizing the way to our base, can we? Lights out for now." Sonic's stomach dropped as the leader snapped his fingers.

One of the figures stepped into Sonic's line of sight from the right and raised the butt of their assault rifle. The blue hedgehog flinched, and before he could get out of the way, white and red lights went off in his eyes and a flashing pain erupted in his temple. He collapsed to the ground, the pain making his vision cloudy and dark. The last thing he saw before he shut his eyes was Shadow roaring and attacking the figures and shots were fired and there was blood and then...nothing.

* * *

A dull, throbbing pain echoed through Sonic's head, and for a minute he squeezed his eyes shut, waiting for the pain to subside. When he felt that the pain was manageable, he opened his eyes. He was lying on a sheet-less hospital bed in a gray room. A window to his right let in soft light, the only light in the room apparently, as Sonic beheld the broken, cracked vertical light on the ceiling.

He tried to bring a hand up to rub at his temple, but then realized with a jolt that he was strapped to the bed with leather bindings. This only sent him into a panic, and he tried to break free of the bindings to no avail. He looked to the door on the left side of the room, but sighed in frustration as the glass was frosted, leaving him no clues as to what lay beyond the room.

Slamming his head back on the bed, he growled, trying to think of a plan. Before he could think of anything, however, the door opened and a black figure walked into the room, closing the door behind it. Walking almost silently, it leaned onto the wall next to the bed, crossing its arms.

"Remember me?"

At the sound of his voice, a flutter of recognition ran through Sonic's mind, and he growled threateningly. "Hey! Why the hell am I strapped down? And where's Shadow?" He shouted out in frustration at his own helplessness.

"He's being kept in a special room because of his threat level. You're being strapped down because I'd rather not have you escaping, obviously." The leader said, amused.

"Why did you guys kidnap us in the first place? We haven't done anything to you!"

"Oh, I'm not stupid enough to reveal my plans. You're just going to have to wallow around in confusion for a moment longer."

At that statement, a sudden surge of anger went through Sonic's body, and with it, he could suddenly feel the far off presence of...energy? Was there a chaos emerald around here? The energy was of a small amount since it was so far away, but Sonic pulled and pulled from it; a minor surge of power surging through his body. Unbeknownst to him, a flicker of gold streamed through his fur, making it stand on end for a couple seconds, and shading his pupils the color of blood.

Seeing the flash of color, the leader jumped from his leaning stance, exclaiming, "Hey, cut that out or I'll knock the lights out of you again!"

Sonic was unable to hear him as all his focus was on the immediate power that was sweeping him away. It was almost as if his body was coming out of a deep sleep, as if that power had been locked away, rusted, and had now been unlocked. He broke out of his leather bindings with a snap, cauterizing the edges of them in a flurry of white hot energy. In a fraction of a second, Sonic had the leader pushed up against the wall, the force making small, splintering cracks in the wall.

He had his hand around the leader's throat, making him choke and gasp for air, not like he wasn't already, seeing as he had the oxygen forced out of his lungs from the impact with the wall.

"Where is Shadow?!" Sonic demanded, his voice grating and amplified.

The leader coughed and growled, "I'm not telling you anything."

"WHERE THE HELL IS SHADOW?" As Sonic shouted this, his fur glowed golden and his quills floated upwards, and his pupils turned to a menacing red again. His voice was menacing and powerful. It lingered for a few seconds after, then his fur went back to its normal shade.

In answer, the leader pulled down his black scarf, revealing a tan muzzle and a black nose. His mouth curled into a very familiar smirk as he declared, "You think you're the only one who can do this?" He shook his head, chuckling. "Go ahead, run away, but know this," and he wrenched Sonic's hands away from his throat, pinning his thumbs into the pressure points between the hedgehog's forefingers and thumbs, making the Sonic cry out in obvious pain. "I will find you, and I will hunt. You. Down."

Sonic flexed his hands swiftly, rotating them so that he was grabbing the leader's wrists, his own hands throbbing from having his pressure points pushed so relentlessly. He brought his foot up and kicked the leader in the face, hearing a satisfied crunch. Suddenly, the energy source he was pulling from was gone, and Sonic almost collapsed from the sudden release. _Huh, I miss it already._

The leader staggered and clutched at his face, guttural moans of pain escaping from his throat as his other hand hugged the wall. Blood seeped from between his black gloves and ran down the length of his arm, and a small river of blood ran down his chin.

Suddenly, a green hedgehog burst into the room, throwing the door open and stopping at the scene in front of him.

"Well, daaaayumm, Sonic. Didn't know you had it in ya."

Sonic was completely taken by surprise. "What...Sc-" He was suddenly cut off by an abrupt shout from the leader.

"How the fuck did you get out, 46?" Blood spattered to the floor as he shouted.

"Oh, you know, the usual.." He said with a chuckle as he brought out an old red lockpick. "There's nowhere me and my lucky lockpick don't go together, 35, you know that."

"I was for sure I broke that in half. In front of you. With my own hands." An exasperated sigh.

"I fixed it." He grinned viciously.

Sonic just stared as the two conversed like anything but gentlemen, not believing his eyes. "35? 46?" Sonic massaged his palms absentmindedly.

"Just what the hell is going on, Scourge?"


	7. Escaping

The green hedgehog, apparently named 46, looked at Sonic with a small bit of sympathy. "I'll explain later, just follow me. We have to get out of here. Now." 46 looked quickly at the leader to see how he would react to them escaping, but all he did was slump to the floor while cradling his nose in his hands, his back to the cracked wall. "He's probably weak from blood loss. Let's go."

"Wait, what about all my stuff?" Sonic asked, remembering that all he had on him was his hoodie and pants.

"Oh yeah, don't worry about that, I've got ya covered. Now follow me."

And with that, the green hedgehog dashed out of the room, leaving Sonic to do nothing but follow. Running from the room, Sonic found himself in a grey hallway with no windows and few remaining light fixtures that weren't already broken or missing. To his left, the hallway ended a couple doors down, and to his right the hallway opened to a three way intersection about eight doors down.

"What...where.." His confusion didn't last long, however, as 46 dashed from around the corner and grabbed his wrist, stumbling and dragging him down the hallway.

"Sonic, we can't tarry; 35's beloved squad has probably been alerted by now, so if I were you, I'd be in a hurry to leave." He announced as he led him down the hallway, right, down another hallway, left, right, and soon it all became a blur.

"But what about Shadow? I can't just leave him here!" Sonic shouted over the wind and the loud echoes of their shoes hitting the tile.

"He's...we can't..." 46 sighed in frustration. "I'll explain later, I promise! Just come on!" He ran faster in silence, leaving Sonic to his thoughts.

_I wonder why Scourge is being nice all of a sudden. It's definitely not like him at all. And why do they have numbers for names? Nicknames, maybe? -sigh- I just hope Shadow's okay. _

After about a minute of running and dashing, 46 finally came to a stop in front of a stainless steel elevator. Numbers ranged from left to right, the last number being 18. They just so happened to be on level 15. Sonic was about to ask about it, but was cut off by 46. "Here we are. Now let's get these doors open so we can-" He suddenly stopped as the list of floors above the doors started flashing, starting with level 4 and gradually going farther to the right.

"Yeah, we should hide." Grabbing Sonic's wrist again, they ran into a nearby room and crouched next to the door, only the sounds of their breathing penetrating the quiet.

"I really wish you would stop doing that. I can run just fine by myself, thanks." Sonic rubbed his wrist in annoyance.

"My apologies, but I panicked, and you don't really know the place."

The conversation ceased as they heard a small ding that could only have come from the elevator. 46 rose to his feet slowly, looking out of the broken glass in the door. Sonic followed his actions, peering over the hedgehog's shoulder to see what was happening.

Two figures in black raced out of the elevator, 9mm's at the ready. They peered down the adjacent hallways, pistols at eye level, muscles tense and ready. The figure closest to them signaled to the other with a two finger salute before they split up. The other figure disappeared around a corner, while the figure who saluted slowly walked down the hallway towards them, careful steps creating soft echoes in the space.

"I recognize that walk...hold on, I need a minute before we go." 46 whispered as he waited for the figure to get close, hiding under the broken window. As soon as he heard the figure grasp the door handle, he burst through, taking the figure by surprise and knocking the gun out of its hand. He pinned the figure's hands above their head while simultaneously pulling down the figure's scarf, revealing a light tan muzzle.

Sonic walked through the door, then immediately went to grab the figure's gun off the floor. As he figured out how to hold a gun, he walked down to the end of the hallway to act as surveillance.

"46? What the hell? They didn't tell you were with him! What are you-" A high, feminine voice was suddenly cut off as 46 closed a hand over her mouth.

"I'm so sorry 23, but I don't have time to explain. You have to believe me, okay? Read this when you get the time." He said as he switched hands so he could drop a letter in her jacket pocket. "I love you. I've..always wanted you to know that. I don't know if you feel the same, but..." His gentle words trailed off as he raised the hand off her mouth to cup it around the side of her face. He kissed her softly, urgently, before pulling away and giving her a shy smile, which obviously looked a little odd on someone like 46.

"Now act like you just found us, while we escape, can you do that?"

"Yes...of course I can." She said as he unpinned her arms, and she quickly brought her scarf back up to conceal her face, sniffing quietly. Clearing her throat, she brought up the cuff of her black jacket, yelling, "Hall 14B, level 7!"

After that, she and 46 raced down the hallway towards the elevator. 23 grabbed Sonic's wrist, plucking her pistol from his hand with ease, much to Sonic's dismay. "I'll just take that back now." She said, then pushed him towards 46, who grabbed his wrist, once again, and pulled him into the elevator.

Once in the elevator, Sonic watched as 46 punched the number 0 on the row of buttons. 23 stood in front of the elevator to watch out for anyone that might've decided to use the elevator. 46 watched her movements, his face a mixture of pain and love. Right before the elevator doors closed, she turned around, and Sonic couldn't see who she was staring at, but he had a pretty good guess.

"46! I love you t-" Her voice was cut off as the steel doors shut with a thud. Immediately the elevator lurched up, making Sonic stumble with the force. Hugging one of the railings, he looked at 46 with sympathy. The green hedgehog was staring at the row of numbers above the door intently, mouth set in a grim line.

The whole encounter just reminded him of Amy, and thinking about Amy only made him think about the rest of his second family, which brought a sick feeling to his already sick stomach. He tried to push the thoughts out of his mind, preferring to think of them when he was more sure of their location. He didn't really get much time to himself to think, anyway, before they were at level 0, and 46 was rushing him out the door.

They were in a massive hallway, and Sonic glanced behind him to see a whole row of elevators behind them, theirs just one of them. It was scantily furnished, just a red, faded carpet covering a scuffed hardwood floor; a few chairs and tables that looked like they were thrown about the room, and a broken radio that was spilling its innards across the wood and carpet. A couple empty frames hung awkwardly on the walls, shards of glass gathered under them in a heap. Debris and rubble gathered in piles around the room, and a fine coating of dust covered everything in the room.

"Something tells me we're the only ones to have been here in a while." Sonic said, observing all of this with a sharp eye.

"Yeah, this is the main entrance to the building. We keep it looking like this to deter visitors. We don't actually enter through here." 46 muttered, looking around the room. "I think this is only the...third? No, fourth time I've been in this room. Mostly just on janitor duty. Once to get some fresh air."

"Janitor duty...? Oh, I get it, you guys dirty it up on purpose." Sonic said purposely, trying to cheer up the green hedgehog. He just rolled his eyes at Sonic and kept walking towards the glass double doors to the outside. The glass was fogged up with dust, so Sonic couldn't see outside anyway.

46 pushed the doors open, and he and Sonic both shielded their eyes, adjusting to the absurd amount of light. Sonic once again yearned for his goggles. They just so happened to be lifesavers when it came to bright light on unaccustomed eyes.

He didn't recognize this location at all. Just snow and patches of yellow dirt as far as the eye could see. The sky was an off-white. He turned around to look at the building they had walked out of. It looked to be a hospital.

He brought his arms together to conserve heat as he remembered that there happened to be a snowy wasteland outside. "Hey, 46, you can't just survive in this with just your jacket, you know."

"I know, don't worry, I have stuff stockpiled in a specific location, which is where we're headed." He stopped and looked at the blue hedgehog, noticing his questioning look. He sighed, "I've been preparing for this event for a while. Trust me, okay? I am in my right state of mind."

And so Sonic followed 46 as they raced through the snow, eventually reaching a dusty road that was only partly covered by snow. They followed this for about a minute before the soft, hazy outline of a city came into view under the pale sky. The road they were on eventually became darker and darker until it turned into a highway, black with peeling white lines of paint. It rose above the ground and into the city, acting as an overpass, literally passing over the smaller buildings on the outskirts of the city.

As they walked farther into the city, more highway's connected with the overpass, some still relatively intact, and others, not so intact. A lot of the overpass's concrete had crumbled or fallen off, exposing the metal bars and innards of the road. In one part, the whole road had crumbled away, leaving them to jump across the wide gap to the other side. All the while, Sonic was enjoying the view from the overpass, looking at the city beneath them, the skyscrapers beside them, and the sky above them.

Only when they were at least a half mile into the city did Sonic stop to think, _why is this city abandoned? This would make a perfect camp for refugees and the like, being so high up and all. _

"Hey, 46, how come this city's abandoned?"

The green hedgehog turned around to look at Sonic strangely. "Don't tell me you haven't noticed?" Sonic gave him a blank look. 46 sighed.

"Clearly, Sonic, it's because this city is radioactive."


	8. Conflagration

"I suppose you don't feel sick at all, do you? Not even a minor headache?" He asked.

"Not really, but now that you mention it, I do kind of feel a small throbbing in the back of my head." Suddenly, Sonic started to get worried, remembering all the things to do with radioactivity. "Why are we walking into this city then if the radioactivity's just going to kill us?" He accused.

"I've got it covered. At the specific location where our stuff is, I also packed some masks, but seeing as you already had one, well, then we have an extra, which is always good."

"And how far from this location are we, exactly?"

"About another half mile or so. We're almost there, so I suggest we get going before we melt into the asphalt."

"Oh that's reassuring."

Ignoring the remark, 46 rubbed his arms absently and kept walking. Sonic followed after, noticing that the opaque white sky was getting a shade darker. The breeze was also starting to get more frigid, sweeping through his clothes to nip at his skin. And not in a nice way, either. The cold and mindless walking, while making his body go on autopilot, unfortunately made his mind go haywire being left to its own devices. He couldn't stop thinking about his friends, or family really, wondering how they were, where they were, wondering if they were even still alive. An image of his kid brother Tails polishing the X-Tornado shot through his mind like a bullet, followed by others, in one of which he and Knuckles were wrestling on the floor while Shadow and Silver kept score.

More of them rushed through his head, and when he didn't think it could get worse, suddenly a memory swept through like a rush of cold water. It was after a battle with Eggman, and Amy was cradling a wounded and beaten Sonic in her arms. Sonic had been so weakened by Eggman that Amy stepped in and handled the battle for him, while simultaneously beating the crap out of the doctor. He remembered it especially, because it was the one time in his life that he had deigned to think about Amy as more than just a friend. Just remembering it sent butterflies into his stomach, and he felt the sharp pricks of tears gathering in his eyes.

_And after I had tried so hard not to think about them and now...aw, geez, I'm about to cry, aren't I? _ He plunged his fingers into his eyes, wiping away the tears frustratingly. _No, I can't...there's no use worrying about them when I'm not even certain...I need a distraction. _With a stubborn shake of his head, he mentally scattered the images and memories to the far corners of his mind, resolutely fixed on worrying about them later. He quickly jogged towards 46 to walk beside him. The green hedgehog gave him a sideways glance, but said nothing.

"We...almost there?" Sonic said, trying to strike up a conversation.

"Yeah, actually it should be coming up pretty soon. You'll see why I chose that spot, it has a really tall-" He stopped midsentence suddenly, throwing an arm out to stop Sonic and staring into the distance, his pupils shrinking to slits. "I smell..."

"Smoke." Sonic finished for him, the smell permeating his senses and putting his body on high alert. Focusing into the distance, Sonic could suddenly see a small column of smoke rising into the air, highlighted by bright orange hues. "It could be a campfire set by refugees, or maybe some stray bit of trash caught fire, or-"

"No." 46 cut Sonic off as he clenched his fists. "No, those aren't refugees." In a matter of milliseconds, 46 had dashed off, leaving Sonic to follow him in confusion, which wouldn't be the first time. As he followed the hedgehog, the smell of smoke became stronger and stronger, and soon the air was tinged with heat.

46 stopped, and Sonic had to swerve to avoid crashing into him. He coughed violently as the column of smoke flew up in front of him, reducing his visibility by at least eighty percent. He squinted his eyes to see, and watched as 46 brought a hand over his mouth and nose, peering over the edge of the overpass, which had crumbled and broken off. "Tch, of course 35 sends that thing out to sniff us out. He must've known we would come here."

Sonic looked down over the edge while trying not to vomit from the amount of smoke in his lungs and was surprised to see a fiery creature on the ground twenty feet below him. Smoke rose up in clouds from the areas where loose rubble and trash had caught fire from the being. He couldn't make out its form very well from above, but it looked to be like some kind of creature all right.

"Uhh, what exactly is that, and why are you acting like you know it personally?"

46 coughed into the air, rubbing his eyes. "I'll tell you later. Right now, we need to worry about not being seen. Hopefully it hasn't found our stuff and we can just grab it and go." He eventually walked back from the edge to a less congested area of the overpass and tried to breathe in cleaner air. "Luckily, that thing can't move very fast, but it sure could bring down an inferno of hell within a good mile radius if it felt like it. Fortunately for us, it hasn't decided to do that."

"Alright, let's just grab our stuff and get out of here before I cough up my lungs." Sonic said, definitely not feeling like being caught in the middle of an inferno. The blue hedgehog jumped over the edge and after a moment of freefall, landed softly on the ground. Luckily the fire had melted the snow around the area. 46 followed soon after, ducking into a roll and coming to his feet. Now that they were on the ground, the heat in the air was much more pungent, and Sonic could actually make out the creature's form, although it had its back to them. He was taken aback by its size, which must've been near eight feet, which was much bigger than his four foot frame.

"Hey, there's the niche where I hid our stuff. Be _very _quiet, Sonic." 46 whispered as he pointed. The road that must've been connected to the overpass above lay on the ground in a rather large pile, and conveniently made a crevice between the slabs of road where he could see a couple bags and articles of clothing.

"Duh." Sonic whispered back as they quickly, but silently, stepped over rubble and cantered towards the crevice. The blue hedgehog looked over his shoulder every five seconds just to make sure the creature couldn't hear them. Once they got to the crevice, 46 reached into the space and brought out a maroon colored hoodie, pulling it over his head. Sonic also reached into it, pulling out his bag and machete, while 46 was busy looking for his articles of clothing.

"Goddamn it, where are my..ah." He smiled as he brought out a pair of bright red sunglasses and put them on. "Can't be me without these babies." Immediately, 46 was more recognizable to Sonic as he wore the sunglasses, looking more like the Scourge he used to know. The green hedgehog sighed in contentment as he pulled on his signature black leather jacket over his hoodie. As he did that, Sonic checked the contents of his bag and pulled out his gas mask, securing it to his face and happy to be breathing clean air again. After, he placed the machete into the bag and slung it over his shoulder, enjoying the familiar weight. 46 also slung his bag, which was also a messenger bag, over his shoulder and put on a gas mask.

"Much better. Now let's be off." 46 announced quietly, and they turned to jump back to the overpass, but a low, deep growl reverberated through the air.

"Oh no..." Sonic voiced both their thoughts as they turned, taking in the sight of the fiery beast. Sonic gasped as a wave of familiarity ran through him.

The creature looked almost exactly like the creature that he and Shadow had fought, except instead of shadowy tendrils snaking around the creature, there was fire. But it was the same shape, with elongated arms and claws and everything. Then Sonic noticed its eyes. They were white-hot, and sparkled like diamonds.


	9. Fragmentary

Before he could think, the creature spewed a molten mixture of fire and lava from its mouth, and luckily Sonic and 46 dived out of the way just in time. As he got to his feet, Sonic dashed behind the creature just as it whipped around and roared in his face, bits of fiery saliva burning his fur. "Watch it! You're Sonic the Hedgehog, for Christ's sake!" 46 yelled as he tackled Sonic, and they tumbled to the ground a good five feet away.

"Sorry, sorry! I just...I've fought one of these before!" He dodged a couple fireballs thrown by the creature. "I know its weakness, but I have a feeling those gems are too hot to grab!" 46 looked at him in confusion, then a realization hit him as they dodged another stream of lava and fire.

"Oh, you must've fought-" His sentence was cut off as the creature roared and expanded its flames in a wide radius, leaving the hedgehogs to use their speed as best they could.

"We should talk about this later! I'd rather not be charred to a crisp!" The blue hedgehog yelled in 46's general direction as he buried his eyes in his elbow, allowing his body the small comfort of less heat. He groaned. Just looking at the flames made his eyes burn; how was he expected to get that close to grab its eyes? He yelped as more fire streamed around him. A rancid smell hit his nostrils, which must've been from the burning trash. Actually, a lot of the area around the battle was on fire. _Need to get closer...close...wait, does 46 have a gun? I have an idea._

"46! I need a gun if you happen to have one on you!" He distracted the creature momentarily so that 46 could rifle through his bag_._

"Uh, yeah! Just a pistol though!"

"That's fine! Toss it!" He grunted as he dashed out of the way of a fireball and grabbed the pistol as it was vaulted towards him, enclosing his hands around it. Gathering his speed, he zipped up to the crumbling overpass to get out of reach of the beast and brought the gun up to eye level, aiming carefully. The creature looked around for a second, then its attention was stolen by 46, who was jumping in arcs around the creature to confuse it.

Sonic had only ever had a small amount of training with a handgun, and it was with Shadow, who, of course, had no patience for idiots. At least he knew how to hold it, now he just had to aim. Tightly closing his left eye, he stared down the sights, breathing in and out in a slow rhythm. When he thought he had the creature's eye in his sights, he pulled the trigger. The bullet missed of course, embedding itself in the creature's shoulder and only pissing it off further.

"Goddammit, 46! Can you please stop jumping around so much?!" He yelled at 46, who only shrugged his shoulders and did a back flip to avoid a jet of flame. Sonic brought up the pistol again, breathing slowly and going through the motions. When he felt he was ready and had the creature's left eye in his sights, he pulled the trigger.

Only for the weapon to stall with a pathetic click.

"Oh goddammit-" He sounded out each syllable with a shout and threw the gun down onto the concrete with a huff. He growled and jumped back down to the ground.

"Hey, 46! Do you know how to do a tornado?" He called out as he rushed up to him.

46 looked at the blue hedgehog with an eyebrow raised. "Hell no."

"Just watch me." Sonic gathered himself into a ball and rushed in a circle around the creature, creating searing waves of air and making 46 cover his face with his arms.

46 then opened his eyes wide in fear as he realized something. "SONIC, YOU BLUE IDIOT! DO YOU KNOW WHAT OXYGEN DOES TO FIRE?" His shouts were echoed by a shrill scream from the creature as its fiery body grew twice in size, a tidal wave of heat and flames knocking Sonic and 46 back in different directions. As 46 crashed into the ground, Sonic was thrown in the air to collide with one of the concrete columns of the overpass, immediately knocking him out cold.

The green hedgehog looked up into the sky lightheaded and tried to get his bearings as he watched an inferno of fire rise into the air in a column. The column of fire swirled higher into the air before floating away into the distance, getting smaller and smaller.

46 let out a long breath as he closed his eyes, wincing from the multiple burns across his body. _And the monster goes crawling back to its daddy. Tch, just enough to hurt us, eh 35?I appreciate it. A whole lot._ The hedgehog thought to himself as he tried to get up, groaning from the searing pain. "Ugh, I should have some ointment in my bag. At least I hope..." 46 trailed off as he saw Sonic crumpled in a heap next to one of the overpass's columns.

"Sonic!" 46 exclaimed as he rushed over to the blue hedgehog, laying two fingers under his jaw. He let out a small breath of relief as he saw that the hedgehog was still breathing. 46 then turned his attention to Sonic's burns and, after leaning him forward and bringing up his hoodie, a very large bruise on his back. The fur on his head was also matted with blood. "Jesus, I am no doctor, that's for sure. I think his bones are probably broken too." He sighed in frustration. "Hell, I need 28. Or even 52. They're the only ones who are the least bit skilled in stuff like this."

Suddenly, Sonic's eyes slowly started to crack open. As soon, as the mist cleared from his eyes, he blinked furiously, taking in his surroundings and 46 who was kneeling in front of him. Immediately after setting his gaze on 46, Sonic groaned and gritted his teeth, squeezing his eyes shut and leaning his head back onto the concrete support. Breathing through his teeth, he said, "Well that certainly could've been worse."

The green hedgehog just looked at him with an expression of sympathy, worry, and a bit of fear. "You're an idiot, you know that?"

"I know. But I had to do something. I hate being useless." Sonic grunted.

46 sighed and rose to go pick up their bags, hoisting them over his shoulders and hoping that his body wouldn't give out after the first mile or so. After, he went back over to Sonic, putting his left arm under the hedgehog's knees and his right arm under his armpits. He lifted him up with a small grunt and, jumping from the rubble pile, landed back onto the overpass. He immediately regretted that decision as a burning pain shot up his spine. The hedgehog almost went to his knees from the pain, but caught himself just in time.

Sonic, clearly seeing 46's pain, protested, "Hey. Dude, I can..carry myself. You don't have to do this."

"Are you crazy, Sonic? You probably broke..a million bones back there. No way you're walking." The emerald hedgehog tried to muster up a smirk. "I'm a big boy, I got this. Been through much worse, trust me." He cleared his throat.

"Besides, we need to find you a doctor, and I think I know," he stopped to clear his throat. "I think I know just where to find one." 46 paused to cough violently as he inhaled dust and smoke.

"He'll probably end up finding us though."


	10. Reconciliation

He stared into 35's eyes with a look of dread. 35 liked to take off his mask and scarf when they were indoors, even though the air smelled musty with disuse, especially since their base was levels underground. 28 much preferred when he wore his mask; at least then he didn't have to look upon his face, which made his stomach coil in knots with disgust. 28 hated that he couldn't wear his hood because of his quills. They always found a way to inconvenience him one way or another. He clasped his hands behind his back and straightened his spine in an attempt to look professional.

They were gathered in the conference room, 35's usual hangout. A large bulletin board covered with photos, articles, and bits of trinkets hung on the wall in front of a long table that stretched the length of the room. A rather big gun cabinet loomed in the corner. Books and papers scattered the table and floor.

"Yes, sir? You called me down here?" 28 asked in a low voice while leaning on the table, loathe to do anything else that his leader decided he wanted done.

28 had previously been patrolling the hallways on the third floor as he had been ordered to, just in case 46 had decided to waltz back in. He and 46 had a history. He knew even before 35 locked him up the first time, before Sonic had been taken in, that 46 would revolt. He could see it in the hedgehog's eyes. Was he the only one that could see that?

He was jolted out of his thoughts as 35's sharp voice cut through the air like a newly sharpened machete. "28, I need you to do something for me."

"Ugh, now what? I pulled extra duty, stayed up all night trying to track down 46's whereabouts, I even put up with 23 in training this morning, because you paired us. And you know I can't stand her." He snapped, crossing his arms.

35 growled menacingly, "You know, I'm getting really tired of your mouth. Can't you just be subservient like the rest of your squadron?"

After a long moment of silence in which 28 and 35 glared knives at each other, 35 finally sighed, rubbing the sides of his head with one hand. 28 smiled inwardly, narrowing his eyes.

35 brought his eyes back up to look at 35, the ugly scars on the left side of his face contorting with his frown. "B2.0 went a little..awry. She's a bit temperamental to say the least. I had hoped to just send her as a warning, but she took it a little too far, as usual." 35 brought a hand up to clench 28's shoulder, although not very kindly. 28 winced a little as 35 spat out his words, "I need you to track 46 down and exterminate him. He's no longer useful to me, and we need Sonic back under our surveillance."

Letting go of the hedgehog, 35 turned away to study the bulletin board. He fingered a military grade knife that stuck out of the board. "We can't have him finding out about _the plan_, now can we? And there's no doubt that 46 will probably tell him everything."

"Sir, I-" 28 began.

Suddenly, 35 whirled around and something extremely sharp whistled past him, landing on the wall behind him with a thud. 28 bit his tongue as he felt a sharp pain in his ear, felt the blood well up and stain his fur.

"I said go."

* * *

28 was outside.

It felt like forever since he had been outside, and he brought down his scarf and breathed in the cold air with vigor. If there was anything that made him feel better, it was the cold. The weather was the one thing that he could look forward to. Like the snow that crunched under his black boots, a cold smile lit up his features.

He walked away from the double doors of the hospital and towards the concrete building that was the armory. Bursting in with a loud squeal from the doors, he navigated his way in the darkness to stand in front of a metal cabinet. Opening it, he gingerly picked out his favorite sniper rifle, a scope, a box of ammo, a belt, and eyed a dark beige duffel bag that was stuffed in the corner.

Rifling through it, he was content to see that all of his stuff was still present; a bowie knife, a switchblade, a glock and ammo for it, various non-perishables, a gas mask, another pair of boots, just in case, spare clothes, and bottles of water. There was also other stuff, but he felt they weren't important and dismissed them. 28 picked up the bag and set it on a metal table next to the cabinet, then placed the sniper rifle and the other stuff next to it.

The hedgehog worked quickly, fixing the scope to the rifle, loading all of his guns with ammo, fitting on the belt, putting the guns in their holsters, looping the knives into the belt, and finally fixing the rifle to rest on his back. Slinging his bag over his shoulder, he walked over to the other half of the armory, getting used to the familiar weight.

Rows upon rows of vehicles rested on the cold concrete; trucks, armored humvees, motorcycles, etc. He made a beeline around the vehicles to stand in front of a silver motorcycle with black and gold stripes, almost looking at it adoringly. 28 swung a leg over it and sat on the leather seat, sighing fondly.

_Nothing quite like having my old toys back. I didn't realize I missed going on missions so much. _He chuckled._ I'd almost thank 35, but then again, he is an ass._

Kicking up the balancing peg, he leaned down to flip some switches and rev up the engine, not quite liking the coughs and sputters, but it had been sitting out there for a while.

Raising up a gloved hand, a familiar glow resonated from the center of his hand, and the lights flipped into darkness while the door on the side of the armory rolled up like a garage door. Once it was high enough, he made a quick motion with his hand and the door starting going down again. He kicked his feet up and sped out of the armory, spitting up snow and dirt in his wake.

* * *

46 was leaning against a demolished car, attempting to make his breathing slow and even. The burns and extreme fatigue from the fight with the fire creature finally got to him, it seemed. His stubborn mind could only resist the pain for so long before his body caught up, screaming its agony to his brain. There wasn't really much he could do for burns though. He cursed himself for not preparing for this sooner.

They weren't yet out of the city, but they were just out of the radiation's reach, luckily. The sun was ever so slowly setting in the sky, casting soft shadows in the city.

Next to him, Sonic was propped up against the car as well, head leaned back and barely moving a centimeter. His body was too numb to comprehend the pain, which in all reality was a good thing at the moment.

"46. Stop being so freaking stubborn and..go get some help..There's gotta be some nomads or travelers or somebody around here to help us." Sonic looked from his position towards 46, his glazed eyes and pale skin accentuating his statement.

46 gave him an exasperated look and pushed himself away from the car with a grunt. Before he could take another step, however, he felt..something. Maybe the air had changed, or maybe it was because the sun was setting, but he felt something. It was far off, but it was getting closer. And after a few seconds to get the gears running again in his head, it finally hit him. There was only one person who made him feel like that, and only because he had become so attuned to his kinesis over the years. 46 looked to the east, down the road that they had traveled.

_Of course he sent him. Of all people, he had to send him. Well, since he's not bothering to be quiet, maybe he's decided to talk face to face before he kills me._

"46, what's wrong?" Sonic asked, casting his eyes to look at the hedgehog through his peripherals.

"It's 28. They must've sent him to get rid of me and nab you."

Not bothering to hide, 46 grabbed a pair of binoculars out of his bag and looked out into the darkening skyline, watching as the figure walked towards them, at least a few miles away. The figure stopped as he reached a kilometer long gap in the highway, and he looked straight at 46 as if he was right in front of him. He brought something blue and shiny out of a pocket in his jacket and vanished, as if the wind had disintegrated him.

46 slowly brought down his binoculars, stunned. "Where the hell did he get a chaos emerald? We only found three." The green hedgehog murmered, mostly to himself.

A tiny wisp of sound behind him, and 46 suddenly knew. He turned around slowly.

"Silver?!" Sonic exclaimed, his eyes going wide. "46, this is-"

His speech was cut off as the figure quickly pocketed the emerald and brought out a rifle, pointing it straight at 46. "Finally, I've found you. Give me answers. Now." His voice sounded strained and urgent under the scarf, and his eyes were dark beneath the hood. Even without much of his face and body showing, he seemed older.

"Give me questions first." 46 stated, crossing his arms.

"Why are you traveling with Sonic?" Silver asked, not lowering the gun.

"Silver, what the hell are you-"

46 stopped Sonic with a look. "I am 46. I am not one of them. I was trying to guide Sonic to safety, to you, but I guess you found me first, huh?" After a few seconds, Silver lowered the gun, but still kept his hands on it. "I never liked the man's plans anyway, and I figured you guys would never let me into your secret club, so I tried to do the best I could with what I was given." The green hedgehog crossed his arms resolutely.

Silver glanced at Sonic, eyeing over his numerous injuries. "How did he get hurt?"

Sonic spoke without waiting for 46 to reply to the question. "I made a stupid decision, and I'd be happy to tell you about it if you would just put the gun away. We're all friends here."

Silver stared into Sonic's eyes, obviously thinking hard about something. Finally, his eyes darted to the side, and with a shaky breath, confessed, "I-I'm sorry, I just...," He put the gun away, securing it back into place next to his bag. Silver lowered his scarf and took off his hood, shrugging off his pack and tossing it to the side. As tears pricked his eyes, he knelt before Sonic and hugged him, crying softly into his shoulder. Without a word, Sonic returned the hug, a smile replacing his solemn features.

46 stood awkwardly off to the side, glancing at the pair with a ghost of a smile.


	11. Sojourn

"-and I swear for a second I thought that he was dead. But no, he's tough as a brick, that one." 46 finished recounting the past events, giving a low chuckle. He knelt next to Sonic, still lying against the car, as Silver inspected Sonic's numerous burns and injuries. After, the hedgehogs carefully set Sonic on the ground stomach first. 46 lifted up the back of Sonic's charred hoodie as Silver examined it closely, taken aback by the amount of dark, purple bruises like macabre patchwork. He edged his fingers along the hedgehog's spine and latissimus dorsi, lightening his touch when he gasped in pain.

"Hey, 46, you said that you guys were originally trying to find me, right?" asked Silver, providing light conversation.

46 nodded. "Yeah, either you or 23, she's pretty good at this stuff." 46 suddenly lapsed into a trance as he thought of 28, feelings of melancholy happiness rushing through his heart. "Or as a last resort, 28. But he'd probably just make everything worse."

"I really don't know any of these..people..you're talking about. And I don't understand why they're numbers-"

"You'll meet 28 soon, don't worry. And 28's a lot like you. Just a lot more ruthless." 46 settled for that explanation.

"...anyway, I was just wondering how you knew about my abilities. Or even about me, rather." He tensed as his prodding elicited a shriek from Sonic.

"I don't want to explain out here. It's not safe. Let's just say that I have this friend."

Silver finally stopped pressing him for answers and returned his attention to his patient lying on the cold concrete. "Okay, this will probably hurt, but you'll thank me later." And with that, Silver hovered his hands a few inches above Sonic's skin, sucking in a breath. Sonic unwrapped his scarf and stuffed it into his mouth, crossing his arms and laying his head on them.

On the exhale, teal wisps of energy flowed from his glowing veins, through his hands, and into Sonic's back, and at once light spread through his body from that central point, like ripples in a pool. Sonic, tensing violently all over, gave muffled screams. Sharp cracks were heard as the bones in his back reset themselves, growing new sinews and blood vessels, leaving only faint scars. The energy cycled through the blood, removing bruises and rejuvenating the blood cells. The skin patched itself up, healing the gaping wounds and leaving only dried blood. Once the healing was over, the tendrils of light rose out of Sonic's body and back into Silver's hands, which he clenched, stopping the flow of energy. His job done, Silver sat back on his heels, waiting for a response from the hedgehog.

After a few moments, Sonic tore the scarf out of his mouth and took a deep breath, placing his hands by his side on the ground. He slowly lifted himself into a plank position, then stepped his feet forward until he was squatting, then pushed himself into a standing position. He swayed a little on unsteady legs, to which Silver lent a hand. Once he regained his balance and his legs stopped shaking, Sonic patted Silver's shoulder to let him know he'd be alright, and started walking.

Feeling at once energetic, he started stretching his muscles by jogging in a circle, then doing some stretches. "Gee, I really love that power of yours, Silver! Thank you so very much." He exclaimed, smiling.

"It's nothing, really. Just doing a favor for a friend." Silver said. Sonic's smile was contagious.

"I hate to break the moment, but we gotta go. Now, preferably. Since you're better, we should probably make good time getting there." Scourge declared, shrugging his pack on.

"Wait, I have a chaos emerald. I could just teleport us a few miles out from the place." Silver stated, taking out his blue gem.

"That is awfully convenient, but why a few miles out?" Sonic asked.

"Oh, it's a security measure. Keeps people from teleporting directly inside. Even though they would have to know what the place looks like in order to teleport. Can't exactly conjure in your mind what you think it looks like. Doesn't work that way." Silver broke off his speech as he motioned for them to grab a part of his jacket. And with that, they disappeared in a blue flash.

Sonic felt like he was hurtling down a dark shaft, his stomach dropping. It was all over in a matter of seconds, and when he came to, he found himself landing lightly on hard packed ground. 46 and Silver dropped beside him, gaining their footing. Standing, he looked around.

The landscape was vastly different than the city, and slightly reminded him of the empty space of land when they were escaping the hospital/base. They stood on a hill overlooking a fairly large valley. Light flakes of snow drifted in the air, and a blanket of snow covered the ground. The sun was setting below the horizon, only a peek of dim sunshine lighting up the sky. A small town could be seen in the distance, and mountains rose up on the east side of the valley.

Below them, a few miles away, a crashed truck lay on its side, a wreckage of cars piled alongside it. It was horribly misplaced in the empty valley. As for the base they were supposedly going to, Sonic didn't see anything around.

"Hey, I thought you were only placing us a few miles out." Sonic stated, looking at Silver with a confused expression. 46 copied it, looking around.

Silver chuckled, saying, "Come on, Sonic, I thought you were smarter than this." He immediately started walking down the hill, leaving the two hedgehogs to follow after him. Once Sonic saw in which direction he was walking, he understood.

A few minutes later, they were standing in front of the wreckage of vehicles. "See how the cars are piled on the truck? It hides the door and makes it hard to get to." Silver said.

"This can't be your only entrance. It's useful, but what about emergencies?" 46 asked, studying the wreckage.

"Oh, we have another entrance, but to be frank, I don't really trust you enough yet to show it to you," Silver saw 46's hurt expression. "Sorry, but after years of this, you learn to be cautious."

"Years?" Sonic half whispered to himself.

Silver crawled under one of the cars, and Sonic and 46 followed. They could barely see the hatch at the back of the fallen truck, as dark as it was. After punching in a code, Silver opened the hatch and crawled inside. Sonic followed after him, crawling until he got into the truck and saw there was enough room to stand. They were instantly shrouded in darkness as Silver locked the hatch behind them.

"Well this is fun." Sonic said, eliciting a chuckle from 46.

"Hold on, the door's usually somewhere over here." Silver's voice echoed.

"You mean sometimes it likes to move itself?" 46 said sarcastically.

Suddenly a loud bang was heard, making Sonic's skin jump. A shard of light beamed up from the open hatch in the floor.

"I found it." Silver announced, his features lit up.

"I didn't notice." 46 grumbled.

The two made their way over to Silver, dropping down the ladder and shutting the hatch behind them. When Sonic reached the bottom of the ladder, he found himself in a round room, and an elevator was situated in the wall to their left. Besides that, the room was sparse.

Sonic followed behind Silver as the elevator opened, stepping inside and watching as the hedgehog pressed the one of two buttons on the panel, for the first floor.

When the elevator came to a stop, the doors opened with a chorus of shrieks.

Immediately Silver knew something was wrong. The silence was thick where usually there were the heated conversations of his comrades or the whirring of the large computers situated in the anteroom. This was the main room of their base, and as such was host to debates, discussions, and battle plans. Stairs led down from the elevator on each side, and many desks and chairs were scattered throughout. A row of large screens sat in the front wall, currently off. Three tunnels branched off from the main room.

Silver walked out of the elevator and, stilling his breathing, listened. Sonic protested, and Silver put his index finger up, quieting him. The computers were off when they were normally on 24/7. He couldn't hear any voices coming from the tunnels.

"Stay in this room and keep quiet." He muttered to the two behind him and started walking towards one of the tunnels.

"Hey, we are totally capable of handling ourselves-" 46 growled, but was interrupted.

"You will stay, because you don't know the base or the people in it." Silver growled back, and was gone up the stairs. 46 grumbled obscenities and sat in a leatherback chair, propping his feet up on a desk. Sonic was surprised at his lack of alarm, but didn't question it. He felt a need to explore and get to know the base, but he obeyed his friends. Usually. To keep busy, he fiddled with a torn pocket in his jacket.

Sonic jumped when a loud screeching noise sounded from all sides and the lights went out. 46's breathing went still next to him. A few seconds later, screams were heard from the tunnel Silver had gone through moments ago, and Sonic dashed towards the source of the sound. Quickly and quietly, he made his way up a spiral staircase situated at the end of the tunnel. He barely went up ten steps before the lights came on, and the whirring from the anteroom told him the computers were on again.

46 was nowhere to be seen, but Sonic dismissed it, now bounding headlong up the stairs, nearly tripping as he went. Vaguely, he noticed blood slowly streaming down the steps.

He couldn't take in the room as he saw a Silver kneeling in front of what was probably the source of the blood. "Silver?" He asked, alarmed, dashing up to the hedgehog.

The first thing he noticed was orange fur.


End file.
